


courage enough, or resolution enough

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mid S4, Planning the proposal, Ring shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 10:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10094474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: Fitz asks Daisy to go ring-shopping with him.Maybe a favour and ice-cream cones can't fix everything, but they sure are a good place to start.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm the worst at timelines, so imagine this happens after Daisy comes back but before they find out about Robo!May. Written for the "M is for March is for Mates" for @aosficnet2 at tumblr.

When someone knocks at her bunk’s door, she just shouts for them to come in, in automatic mode; maybe she should have figured that it was Fitz (May doesn’t knock, ever, and you can hear Mack coming from like a mile away, and there is a "Jemma Simmons’s knock", trademark pending; so, it was either Fitz or Coulson: there is not many other people left on base with whom she is close enough to receive a visit).

“Oh, Fitz. Hi.”

“Um, Daisy. Would you, um, would you mind helping me with something?”

He is stuttering a little, which means that he is nervous, and stuttering makes him more nervous, and that is a never ending cycle, so she puts him out of his misery.

“Sure.”

She doesn’t say that he is the only one that worries too much about it, that she doesn’t even notice it most of the time. He has changed in so many ways in the last four years - and so has she- that this is just one small thing on her book. (Of course, she also doesn’t have to live in his body. Maybe it’s better that she keeps her mouth shut.)

He hangs around in the door, dubious, and she raises and eyebrow.

“Is there any problem?”

He blushes a little and gestures vaguely to her upper body.

“Um, yes. It is, well, it is not in the lab, it’s, um. Outside. So maybe you want to change? I can wait for you to put your things in order a little, if you want. No problem.”

Daisy looks down at her loose tank top and then at the mess around her. He is right about the clothes, probably, but nothing can be done about her room. She hasn’t had time to properly settle in again, but she can’t fix it in a couple of minutes. It doesn’t bother her, though; she has lived in much worse conditions for much longer spans of time.

“I will just put on some more cozier clothes. Hangar in five?”

He nods, and hangs back again a little, but just when she is about to ask him if he needs anything else, he leaves.

* * *

He is already on the van when she arrives, and that has to mean that he is in some sort of cahoots with May. Daisy isn’t sure if that makes her feel better or worse. She gets in and he smiles at her a little, but he doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t dare either until they are way into the road. She can count the people she trusts this much with the fingers of just one hand, he could be taking her anywhere and she would probably go willingly, but she wants to know anyway.

“Where are we going, may I ask?”

He is silent for a long while even then, his eyes fixed on the road, and Daisy tries not to feel too nervous, and fails.

“There is something I need to buy. And, um, let’s just say that a woman's opinion would do me good.”

Daisy frowns. Why on earth can he need to buy that he can’t take Simmons with him for advice? Unless…

Realisation dawns on Daisy suddenly, and her body can not decide whether she should be delighted, touched, or scared shitless that she could mess this up big time. This is about him and about them, and she can't ruin this in any way. She jus can't.

Maybe she shouldn’t ask, but she can not keep quiet for that long without being sure.

“Are we going to buy a ring?”

His response is not what she was expecting: he blushes crimson and a smile emerges from his mouth, like maybe he tried to keep it in, but couldn’t succeed.

“Am I that obvious?”

She feels like crying for some reason, so she turns around to look out of the window instead of at him before answering.

“No. But I know you very well.”

She screwed up. This is not going well and now he is going to turn around and take them to base and take Simmons out shopping for her own engagement ring and she can't even blame how emotional all this makes her, because her best friends are not engaged yet. She just can't help fucking it up. She takes a big breath, but no air seems to reach her lungs, and she can't loose control in an enclosed space with someone she cares about.

“I don’t know when or how I’m going to ask her yet. But I thought that maybe having the ring would inspire me, and also spur me on, you know?”

She takes another very deep breath, but this time it's not shallow, it's the kind of breath that May made her practice for a half week when they first started training together. He is not turning the van around, and he is not yelling at her, and he is doing small talk and his voice is soft, and Daisy doesn’t dare look at him yet, but maybe her entire world is not falling apart just yet.

“I will try not to spill the beans, I swear.”

Her voice is strained, and she is glad that he doesn’t comment on it or move his eyes away from the road, even though she swears he can see a sad glint in his eyes.

“You better.”

* * *

They are who they are, specially when they are together, and even after everything that has happened, so they arrive to the jewellery store with an ice cream cone each. It’s nice, Daisy thinks, to be able to do normal, regular stuff with him. Maybe they should talk more about what happened, because she still feels she did the right thing, what felt right in the moment and what she thinks was best for all of them, if not for her. And well, he is entitled to his own feelings and to his hurt and his disappointment, she supposes, even if they hurt like a bitch.

They are both glued to the windows display, and she can see that he is panicking a little, because his cone is trembling slightly and she wonders if maybe she should ask him about his budget or if he has anything he would like on mind, try to make this less stressful for him. But instead she grabs his wrist, and how ironic it is that she can get someone to stop shaking.

“Come on, let’s get inside and look at all the ugly ones and you can tell me all the ways you would have made them much much better.”

He freezes, and she thinks that she knows him well enough to not offend him with something like that, but when she turns around she grabs both her wrists with his hands and she looks at the floor and sees his ice cream spilled and melting. His skin is warm as usual, and Daisy swears that there is warm waves going up her arms from the point he is touching them. This must be really important, for Fitz to drop food and everything.

“Daisy, you are a _genius.”_

“Am I now?”

“How did I not thought of that before? I should make her the ring. Come on, let’s get another cone or two and then we should head back to base.”

She can’t help but smile, because, really, it’s like she has gained back five years of her life.

* * *

The trip back is mostly silent, but much less tense than the previous one was. Daisy feels very hopeful: her best friends are getting married (because there is no way Simmons wouldn’t say yes) and maybe her and Fitz can be okay again, sometime in the future. She has had worse days without even getting out of bed.

“I know we didn’t do much in the end, but I also know we aren’t, um, in the best of terms, and I wanted to thank you. You know, for wanting to share this with me.”

He is silent for so long that she starts doubting herself again.

“Daisy, things have been hard, hell, things _are_ hard, and maybe in he near future I would like to explain myself and apologise to you, but nevertheless that, you are still my best friend. That doesn’t change easy.”

Her emotions are so strong and so overwhelming that she reacts on automatic mode with a joke.

“Tell that to Simmons.”

He groans, he actually groans, and there is something tight on her throat, she just isn’t sure if it’s laughter or tears.

“I take it back. You are the worst. Like, _the actual worst_. I will design an experiment to prove it empirically and everything.”

Okay, it’s probably both laughter _and_ tears.


End file.
